[Review] Super Mutant Alien Assault - Nintendo Switch

[Review] Super Mutant Alien Assault – Nintendo Switch

Super Mutant Alien Assault

Nintendo Switch

Reviewed By: Tyler Higgs

Developed By: Cybernate

Published By: Fellow Traveller

Category:, Action, Rogue-lite

Release Date: July 12, 2019

Alone in space with some of the last remaining humans in the world you a small personal defense robot is tasked with saving them. Aliens are invading your ship and they want to destroy the human races last hope at salvation. Can you brave the alien forces and defeat them to save mankind, or will you fall and leave them doomed. Think of this like a 2D Alien Isolation, but with no stealth mechanics, and not really a horror game.. okay scratch that this is nothing like Alien Isolation. This is Super Mutant Alien Assault

Super Mutant Alien Assault is a 2D rogue-lite action title. You play as one of three small robots on a closed in spaceship. The entirety of the game takes place across 3 galaxies and each galaxy is comprised of four different rooms.

Each room is tight quartered and will fill up quickly with enemies. While sometimes your mission will be to simply defeat all of your enemies, it’s not always that simple. You see sometimes you’ll have extra missions that have to be completed in each room.

For example, some rooms will require you to bring multiple tubes, or metallic orbs from one side of the room to the other. Then you’ll have to place them inside of a machines to power them. This sounds like an easy task, but it’s made daunting, because of the variety of aliens that are ready to pounce on you.

The aliens differ from being one’s that fly, to ones that can jump high, and even ones that can only be killed by destroying their armor first. Not to mention the longer you stay in one room the faster they will start to spawn into the room. Luckily, you have a vast arsenal of weaponry, and abilities to take out these aliens.

In each room you can have two different machines that spawn in and give you weapons. The 2 types of weapons they give is a weapon and an explosive. There are quite a few different weapons and they differ substantially. You have the classic pistol, a shotgun, a chakram you can toss, and even an exploding pogo stick! The explosives are a little less varied, but still very useful. Having a cluster grenade, or a regular grenade, or a detonable explosive can make or break some fights. It all depends on what your up against. Other machines that give health and ammunition also exist and can spawn into a room during your playthrough.

Besides weapons and explosives you can also gain abilities that will help you during your journey. Some abilities can be used as often as you want like the dash, and double jump ability. There are others, however that will take special energy to use. These abilities are usually quite strong, like a giant lazer beam that vaporizes a column of enemies.

Each playthrough is randomly generated, so you’ll have to adapt to whatever mess you’re tossed into. To make each successive run easier, you can unlock bonuses to help you out. These bonuses come in the form of making new weapons, grenades, and abilities available or unlocking the ability to start with one. You can run out of ammo in a weapon so it’s always nice to have a weapon like the explosive pogo stick to start the round with. This feature also gives Super Mutant Alien Assault a feeling of progression, and that every run is going towards something.

It’s nice that Super Mutant Alien Assault has a sense of progression, because the game’s a bit short on content. I manage to finish my first playthrough of the game after only an hour and a half of playing it. Now it’s important to note that you do unlock more difficulties after beating the game once. For example to unlock the next higher difficulty you have to complete the game while starting at the first galaxy. You also still have tons of bonuses to unlock and an endless mode you can try.

If you’re the type of player who likes to replay levels on increasingly higher difficulties, you will have a blast with Super Mutant Alien Assault. Every level is a bit different due to procedural generation, but they never really change to a high extent. Sadly, if you’re someone who enjoys streams of new content, you may find yourself a little disappointed.

I should also mention Super Mutant Alien Assault has local co-op play for you and a friend. This is a superb game to play with a friend and I recommend any fans of couch co-op titles to try this one out.

Super Mutant Alien Assault uses a visual design that’s reminiscent of SNES era graphics. Everything is very colorful and the alien designs are well done. The alien designs are a happy medium between being creepy and menacing. The sound design is also well done and it blended smoothly with the gameplay.

I can happily report I had no technical issues during my playthrough of Super Mutant Alien Assault.

While it may not be for everyone Super Mutant Alien Assault is, undoubtedly an enjoyable action packed experience. The gameplay is solid and has a variety of different weapons, so that taking out aliens never gets boring. Visually, the game’s colorful and delightful to look at. It’s a bit too short on new content, but players that are looking to play through multiple times on increasing levels of difficulty will definitely have a great time with this one.